Thursday, November 13, 2014

What Can't Nano Technology Do?

Well, it can clean the gross smelling air in submarines. How? By replacing the chemical amine, which is currently used in the air recycling process on board submarines. The key to this breakthrough are SAMMS: Self Assembled Monolayers on Mesoporous Supports. From a really interesting article at Wired:

Amine doesn’t just stink, it’s also highly corrosive and will ruin anything not made of stainless steel. This makes it a huge maintenance burden, as it needs to be flushed and moved into storage whenever it gets saturated with CO2. The sandy SAMMS would alleviate this, as it doesn’t need special storage. “When you go from a liquid to a solid, you’re able to get rid of all the pumps and tanks,” said Jay Smith, an engineer at the Naval Ships Engineering Station, Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division (NAVSSES) in Philadelphia who has been getting the SAMMS-based replacement ready for deployment. “It’s also safer, and more environmentally friendly to dispose of,” she said.